


warlock

by elizajane



Series: and behold, it was so very good [16]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidental Parenting, Established Relationship, Gardener Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Teenage Warlock (Good Omens), Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21773944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: "I … have an email. From ... Warlock," Crowley says, slowly, to his mobile screen.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: and behold, it was so very good [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1411705
Comments: 144
Kudos: 283
Collections: Summer 2019 Good Omens Fan Exchange





	1. email

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impatvish](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=impatvish).



> This began with the prompt "Nanny and Gardener playing with Warlock" and I went down the rabbit hole of what a relationship might look like between these two and Warlock in a world that didn't end.
> 
> Re: The "work in progress" tag. This piece has six chapters, all but the final one fully drafted, that I am revising with input from my betas. I plan to post two chapters per week for the next three weeks. I'll remove the WIP and mark it complete when it's done for those who wish to wait. 
> 
> This piece falls, chronologically, a year and a bit after "hairpins."

"I … have an email. From ... Warlock," Crowley says, slowly, to his mobile screen. Aziraphale looks up from the book sitting beside his breakfast eggs, then closes it and pushes it aside without bothering to insert his bookmark at the proper page. Because, oh dear, that's an unexpected and worrying statement for Crowley to make on an otherwise pedestrian Tuesday morning.

"From ... Warlock? _Our_ Warlock?" As if it were plausible Crowley would be speaking of another Warlock. Aziraphale is shaking his head to cancel out the question even as he says it, picking up and then lowering his teacup back down to the saucer with a slight rattle. It’s jarring, to think of communication from Warlock. The first they’ve had since -- well, since the day neither of them like to talk about. The birthday party. The absence of the hound. The nauseating realization that they had failed and the knowledge that there was no way to go back and undo what had already been done. 

In that soul-numbing moment of despair, the safest place for a disastrously fragile, _human_ Warlock had seemed -- assuming any of them survived long enough for _safe_ to matter -- as far away from Aziraphale and Crowley as possible. A clean break, Aziraphale had told himself -- and then, repeatedly, told Crowley -- would be for the best. Human children were resilient. As far as the Dowlings were concerned, Warlock had outgrown the need for a nanny-turned-governess anyway. He was to start at one of those boarding schools in the autumn (had been on the list since birth). Such schools had always reminded Aziraphale too much of Heaven to seem hospitable, but many human children did survive them. And there, Warlock might be free from the scrutiny of Heaven and Hell; free from the fairly spectacular cock-up Aziraphale and Crowley had made of his childhood. Free to become who he actually _was_ rather than being steered so ineptly away from a fate that (it turned out) hadn't been his to begin with.

They'd failed him _so much_ that their failure was overwhelming. Aziraphale could barely think about it. Crowley wouldn't talk about it. In the weeks and months _after_ \-- when they were moving numbly through the motions of rebuilding their former lives (as if those lives fit who they had become, were becoming) -- they had taken steps to make sure Warlock was physically safe. That he'd begun school. They'd arranged for a few postcards to be sent by Nanny from far away locations. Since then, Aziraphale has been aware of Crowley sending the child odd things he finds, every so often; always from a pillar box, and never with a return address. Aziraphale himself has selected and sent a book, per custom, on Warlock's birthday, at Christmas, and on May Day. But in the two years, one month, nineteen days, thirteen hours, and thirty-six minutes since they had driven away from Warlock's eleventh birthday party, Warlock has never once contacted them.

(They've made that all but impossible; it's safer that way.)

Crowley turns his mobile around and pushes it across the breakfast table. " _Our_ Warlock," he confirms.

_Dear Nanny,_

_I got your present; thanks for the ammonite. I still have the geode you helped me break open; I keep it on my desk at school. I hope it’s okay to email you. I found your address on the employment paperwork in mother’s files. She doesn’t know I’m writing. Could I visit you? I’m allowed to leave school on the weekends if I’ve permission from my parents and I’m staying with an approved adult. I think if it’s you I can get father’s assistant to take care of the paperwork. I've money for the train fare and food and everything. I don’t mind sleeping on the sofa. I'd like to see you. If it’s ok?_

_Sincerely,  
Warlock_

Aziraphale blinks.

"You see my concern," Crowley says. He scowls into his coffee mug and then slides out of his chair to pour another cup from the press on the counter.

"Why does he want to see us -- you -- do you think?" Somehow it's more unsettling to imagine that Warlock has a reason to want to see them, in the present, than it is to imagine that Francis Fell and Nanny Ashtoreth have become a half-forgotten memory. 

Crowley's back and shoulders are angles of tension as he pours the coffee and sucks it down black. "I don't like any of the reasons I can think of,” he says, pouring a third cup and returning to the table. Aziraphale tries to read his expression. After so many centuries of Crowley's expressions Aziraphale has become rather an expert, but Crowley has Warlock-specific expressions that Aziraphale is out of practice reading, and this is one of those.

"The child clearly needs _something_ ," Aziraphale says, tentatively, pushing the mobile back toward Crowley. It won’t have escaped Crowley that Warlock is trying to arrange a visit behind the backs of both his parents. "And we haven't… none of the others have come to harm, through contact with us. Why should either side care about a human child now -- one who never was a part if their plans after all, just --" _just someone who mattered to us very much._ "What harm could it do, saying yes to a visit?" He tries the idea out, imagining he and Crowley driving up to the Dowling residence in the Bentley and … but no, of course, Warlock is at school now. Would they meet with him there, under the watchful eye of ... the school head? No. Warlock had specifically asked to visit -- 

“Here.” It’s not quite a question as Crowley jabs his spoon into his second soft-boiled egg.

"I --," Aziraphale’s instinct is to say yes, of course. Warlock _needs_ them. It’s been Aziraphale's celestial obligation -- to see human needs, and meet them -- for as long as he’s been on Earth. But the idea of Warlock _here_ is ... disconcerting. Upsetting, even, though he can't immediately say why.

He looks around. They’re sitting at the kitchen table with tea and toast between them. The late September sun slants through the window above the sink. Crowley's rosemary bonsai is on the window sill, and their wine glasses from the evening before are upturned drying on the drainboard. To his left is the sitting room -- the rug on which he and Crowley had made love countless times; the table by the front door on which Crowley’s sunglasses and keys sit, untidily, next to yesterday’s _Guardian_ that Aziraphale has not yet made time to read. Upstairs are rumpled flannel bedsheets on a single, unmade bed. Below is the bookshop to which Sky will shortly arrive and open with her own set of keys.

They'd sold Crowley's flat six months previous, which had been several months after Crowley admitted what Aziraphale already understood: that the flat above the bookshop is no longer Aziraphale’s home but _their_ home. The only thing left to do had been hire Newt to design and start construction on a rooftop solarium for Crowley's plants. They'd put Anathema in charge of disposing of the unwanted real estate and asked her to find them a property near enough to Tadfield that they could reasonably keep tabs on the Them without seeming to hover -- though of course precisely no one was fooled.*

* * *

*The children had most recently presented them with a list of features they thought Crowley and Aziraphale’s future property required, a tree suitable for building a treehouse had topped the list.

* * *

In short, this was their life now. The only humans who came through that front door were the very short list of people who knew the look of Crowley's eyes. Aziraphale struggles to picture Warlock in the bookshop, at the breakfast table, sitting on the sofa sipping hot chocolate from one of Crowley's mismatched charity shop mugs. Their years with the Dowlings had been separate from all of ... this. Part of a distant era that felt almost as if it had happened to different beings. He doesn't feel remotely like the Aziraphale who imagined the terms of The Arrangement might be all that tethered him to Crowley; the Aziraphale who thought that could ever be enough.

Aziraphale picks up his teacup and swallows a fortifying mouthful of tea, then helps himself to another slice of toast spread with raspberry jam.

“He’s still a _child_ ,” Aziraphale says finally, to his toast, striving to be firm. He isn’t even sure if he’s speaking to Crowley or to himself. “I think it’s fair to say _our_ child, in that we were charged, however mistakenly, with his care. And he needs us. So we shall.”

"Right," Crowley says, clearing his throat, after a pause. “I’ll write back, then. And say he can come here. For a visit.”


	2. vertigo

Aziraphale descends to the shop after finishing his breakfast, even though Sky is perfectly able to handle most customers without assistance. Having employees (well, _an_ employee) is so liberating to one's schedule; Aziraphale is disappointed in himself for never thinking of it in the past. The shop can now be open even when Crowley distracts him from getting out of bed, or drags him off on a last-minute adventure. Still, despite this brave new world they're living in, he enjoys his quiet routines and spending time in the shop most days is pleasant. Invigorating, even, what with the increasing number of customers the shop has been letting through the door.

"Good morning, Az," Sky says, in her usual grave way, looking up from her mobile when he appears on the ground floor. She’s perched on the stool behind the counter, still wearing her parka against the chill of the mid-September morning. Aziraphale reminds himself that he should find the space heater and order wood for the stove before the first true cold spell. Crowley might do most of his napping upstairs these days, but Sky also runs cold. And now there are students who like to gather in the overstuffed armchairs and sagging sofa that Sky and Crowley had acquired last winter and arranged by the stove. Perhaps, Aziraphale thinks, he could make room for a second electric kettle in that back corner. A tea chest and some spare china. Crowley enjoyed prowling the local charity shops and could be sent out on a mission.

Since Sky began working at the shop, they've had more customers. Aziraphale still isn't sure how he feels about this. More customers means more chances to brighten a person's day with the book they didn't know they needed. But it also means he has to think about such unorthodox ideas as _ordering_ books rather than relying on his familiar network of antiquarian book hunters.

He hasn't purchased _new_ books from _publishers_ since the 1870s. But, after all, he's tried a number of new things since the apocalypse-that-wasn't and enjoyed many of them. Perhaps he can enlist Sky, and the other young people her presence has encouraged the shop to allow in, to help him select new stock to interleave with his usual second-hand wares. If they're going to retire from the payroll of Heaven and Hell, after all, income will have to come from somewhere -- God may have given a rather passive blessing to their union but so far it hasn't come with a dowry or a pension.

"Good morning, my dear," he finally responds, pulling himself back from his wandering thoughts as he joins her behind the counter. He moves to his desk and powers on the computer.

After nearly a year, he and Sky have settled into a routine at the shop: Sky arrives shortly before nine to open for business, then usually goes out in search of a coffee -- sometimes with Crowley -- while Aziraphale enjoys a bit of morning solitude. Once she returns, Aziraphale leaves the midday shop floor to her while he putters around on various projects in the shop and elsewhere: appraisals, auctions, estate sales, correspondence, translations, research. This morning, Aziraphale has barely signed into his computer before Crowley comes down to the shop with his coat on and claims Sky for a walk across the lane to Su Lin's.

"One of the morning buns, please!" Aziraphale calls after them and gets a salute of acknowledgement from Sky as she slips out the door Crowley is holding open for her.

The shop to himself, Aziraphale turns back to the computer and opens his email. Crowley has copied him on the reply to Warlock, which Aziraphale opens to read before he tackles his business correspondence.

_Dear Warlock,_

_Clever lad, to find me; I knew you would. Of course you may visit. I’ve retired from nannying. It wouldn’t have been half the fun with children who weren’t you. Francis and I live in London now, where he runs a bookshop and I do the gardening. We live above the shop and there's a spare bedroom* that you are welcome to use. Let me know if there are forms (there always are). You may not remember, but my full name is Ashtoreth J. Crowley. The school will need it (for the forms)._

_Cheerio,_  
Nanny A.

_P.S. Glad you liked the ammonite! Caught my eye in an antique shop in Notting Hill and I thought of you._

* * *

*There hadn't been at breakfast time but Aziraphale imagines Crowley has taken care of that.

* * *

Aziraphale considers the email. It's an extremely _Crowley_ email: absolutely truthful while revealing very little unless you know where to look. Aziraphale, for example, knows to look at the semicolon between “find me” and “I knew you would” for all the hope and potential heartbreak it contains. He thinks of Crowley’s employment files, deliberately left in the Dowlings’ home office -- somewhere they’ll be forgotten by the parents, but not so hidden that a searching child couldn’t find them. He thinks of the email address, left active, with messages set up to forward to Crowley’s current inbox. He wonders how long Crowley has been waiting for Warlock to return, and feels an upwelling of shame for failing to understand that Warlock, too, is part of the life Crowley has been fighting for.

Aziraphale gets up from the computer and goes over to his electric kettle to switch it on. Another cup of tea will help. As he waits for the kettle to boil he looks around the shop and wonders what Warlock will make of it, of them. He wonders how the quiet, yet perceptive child he remembers from their years at the Dowlings -- “Shy,” his parents said, reprovingly, with downturned lips. “He’s so _withdrawn_.” -- has fared in boarding school. Not so poorly that he’s been sent down; not so well, that he’s moved blithely on from his odd childhood into an adolescence his parents approve of. Once Aziraphale’s assam has properly steeped, he goes back to the computer and opens a new window on his internet browser. He searches for the school’s website, but several clicks in he has to close the tab because the uniform blazers and school ties are making him shiver with visions of angelic training seminars.

It’s disorienting, even a little nauseating, to think that only two Earthly years ago Aziraphale had thought such a place was appropriate for a sensitive child like Warlock. He gets up from his computer again and walks away from his own upsetting thoughts to straighten a shelf of paperback romances while sipping his tea to settle his stomach. Warlock’s email had said nothing about why he wanted to visit. In the absence of facts, Aziraphale can feel the panic rising. Has Warlock developed some sort of … sensitivity to demonic or angelic (or demonic _and_ angelic) forces, given such prolonged exposure? Is he manifesting miracles or engaged in prophecy? Causing small demonic misfortunes for those around him? Or is he being bullied by his classmates, disciplined by his teachers? Had either he or Crowley thought to investigate what forms of punishment the school used?

Oh, what does Aziraphale know about human children; perhaps it’s all a pretext for being allowed to leave school for a few days unsupervised. The copy of _Proper English_ he’s holding in his hand offers no answers. He sighs. Probably the only way they’ll sort out what’s needed is by waiting for Warlock to arrive and reveal what has prompted him to circumvent his parents in order to reach out to Crowley for help.

He’s still standing there thinking when Crowley and Sky return, each carrying a beverage in a tall paper cup, and Crowley with a paper sack containing Aziraphale's pastry. He meets them back at the counter and accepts the pastry bag with a kiss. Nothing very lingering, with Sky present, but firm.

"I look forward to seeing our spare bedroom," he says, with a smile.

Crowley gestures with his coffee cup, an upward ellipsis that takes in the whole of the building they stand in. "Yes. Well. Who wants to sleep on a sofa.”

"Perhaps we can put him to work on potting the tulip bulbs," Aziraphale says as he opens his pastry and _hmmms_ in delight. "He always did enjoy helping with the kitchen gardens."

"If that school hasn't let him grow too posh," Crowley sniffs, leaning back against the counter and taking a meditative sip of coffee. "Public schools must have been Gabriel's invention. Obsessed with conformity, the lot of them."

"He’s _asked_ to visit," Aziraphale reminds him, though of course his own worried thoughts have been treading similar paths.

"I still can't believe you used to work as a _nanny_ ," Sky observes around a mouthful of sticky bun, rolling her eyes at Crowley. "What rich bloke looked at _you_ and said, 'I know, let's hire _him_ to look after our precious future Lord Such-and-so.'"

"I'll have you know I clean up rather well!" Crowley protests. "And they were Americans." He grins, all teeth.

"Oh my _God_ ," Sky says. "Of course they were. What did you do, dress up like Mary Poppins?"

Aziraphale chokes on his mouthful of tea.

"The hat wouldn't have suited me," is all Crowley offers in reply.

"I've always thought you wore flowers very well," Aziraphale observes mildly, setting down his teacup so he can extricate his bun. He's thinking most immediately of the Sunday previous when they had gone to the botanic gardens at Kew and Crowley had spent several hours slithering about and scaring quail in the Mediterranean Garden while Aziraphale re-read a favorite Gerald Durrell. It had been a lovely afternoon. They had stopped at the gift shop on their way back to the Tube; Crowley had complained about the imperfections of every plant on display and then allowed Aziraphale to buy him a flowering hibiscus that was the same deep red as the carmine scales that flare at the small of Crowley's back. Aziraphale had pointed this out later than evening when he was working his slow, kissing way down every scale on Crowley's back from the nape of his neck to his tailbone. Crowley had squirmed under him, protesting breathlessly at the comparison.

"You two are ridiculous," Sky declares happily. Then, dusting the sugar from her hands: "Right. Az, did you want me to put out the book carts today?" She doesn't wait for an affirmative before disappearing into the back room.

“I’ll just … be in my study. If you need me,” Crowley says, which is his way of saying in Sky’s hearing that he’s heading up to the roof to spend some time in the sun, in snake form.

“Be good,” Aziraphale says with a rather sticky kiss. Popping the last bit of morning bun into his mouth, he makes his way back to his computer to get a start on the day’s work.


	3. preparations

The following fortnight passes in a string of what Aziraphale realizes, delighted, could be counted as ordinary days in their new life together. They spend three days looking at properties near Tadfield, none of which suit, but which do give them an excuse to visit several excellent pubs. The autumn term begins at University College and Sky returns to classes, leading to a reduction in her working hours. Aziraphale finds that over the summer holidays he has grown used to full-time assistance and begins to consider the shop regulars with an eye toward recruiting another human the shop will welcome on staff. While waiting for a candidate to become apparent to him, he catches up on some reading as he sits behind the counter. Crowley keeps him supplied with Su Lin's pastries, occasionally accompanies Sky to her lectures, disappears on the sort of purposeful walkabouts through London that have produced most of the new furnishings in the back corner of the bookshop, or retreats up to the roof to spend quality time with his plants.

Against the backdrop of these daily routines, Aziraphale is aware that Crowley is seeing to the details of Warlock’s visit. Much as Crowley had discovered what paperwork was required to hire Sky at the shop, he seems to have mysteriously kept up with the sort of arrangements required to host a thirteen-year-old boy for a long weekend. There have been several emails, a telephone conversation with the school head, forms to complete as Crowley predicted (“Now I know this school is your lot,” Crowley mutters darkly), and travel arrangements to be made. Crowley takes care of it all with grumbling efficiency while Aziraphale ensures he has a glass of a favorite vintage at his elbow when his tone as he talks back to his laptop or mobile becomes particularly pointed.

The new room that’s appeared -- tucked behind the flight of stairs on the first floor -- is small but serviceable, with a bed and a chest of drawers, a bedside table with a lamp, and a cozy armchair by the window. There’s a curtain on the window that matches the one in their own room, as if Aziraphale had bought them as a set long ago. The rug on the floor is one he remembers from a small Parisian pied-à-terre that Crowley had frequented just before the Great War. Crowley may have conjured it into being with a snap of his fingers, but it looks very much as if it has always been nestled right there at the heart of their home, waiting for an occupant.

It’s also, Aziraphale realizes, after the third or fourth pause in the doorway, a room that Crowley is slowly turning into _Warlock’s_. The duvet and pillow cases change color several times, as does the paint on the walls. On the wall opposite the bed, above the chest of drawers, a botanical print appears only to be replaced the following day by one of Nanny Ashtoreth’s profane embroideries, then a bright, rather abstract painting of the beach at Lyme. Aziraphale remembers the three of them stopping on a walk one summer’s day so that Warlock could watch the artist mix her paints, fascinated by the idea one would use purple and gold for sky.

Several days before Warlock’s arrival, a small bookshelf appears by the armchair. Aziraphale considers its empty shelves when he pauses at the door on his way to the kitchen for breakfast, and then, after opening the shop, he walks the shelves of his current inventory and selects a few volumes. He remembers books that he, Nanny, and Warlock read together in the cottage when Warlock was small: _Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers_ and _A Bear Called Paddington_ and _The Woodbegoods_. He remembers Warlock had always enjoyed the guidebooks to flora and fauna he’s kept at the gardener’s cottage for reference and picks a few to add to the growing stack in his arm. Then he carries the lot up to the flat and arranges them on the top shelf of the bookcase.

“There,” he says, aloud, to the empty room. It feels a scant contribution when compared to the effort Crowley’s put in, but it’s _something_ at least.

Aziraphale notices that Crowey is quieter than usual as the date of Warlock’s arrival approaches. But it’s also October and Crowley is often moody and more solitary as the days grow shorter, the air colder. So Aziraphale tries not to become overly anxious and does what he can to keep Crowley’s beverages steaming, to make sure Crowley remembers to eat, and encourages his beloved with kisses to take his time waking up in the mornings. If there’s anything in particular that Crowley need to share with Aziraphale, Aziraphale will have to trust he will give voice to his worries when he can.

Then, the day before Warlock is due to arrive, Aziraphale finds Crowley on the roof with a potted rose on his lap staring at nothing in particular.

“My dear, you’ve let your tea get cold,” Aziraphale says, in gentle admonishment, picking up the cup and rewarming it in his hands.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Crowley says to the middle distance.

Aziraphale sits down next to him, on the beautiful hardwood bench Newt had made them as a roof-warming gift, and sets the tea cup down with careful instruction for it to stay hot. “Do what, my dear?”

Crowley doesn’t immediately answer. Aziraphale sits with him trying not to push. He considers the plant on Crowley’s knees. It’s a delicate purple rose in a glazed pot of greens and blues that Aziraphale does not recall seeing before.

“Is that a new plant?”

“What?” Crowley blinks and looks down at his lap. “Oh. Yes.” He pokes at a petal. “Won’t be for long, though, if it doesn’t put in a bit more effort.” He sniffs. “I bought it for Warlock.”

“Warlock?”

Crowley shrugs. “He was telling me about the rose cultivars he grew over the summer holidays. I thought --” his voice trails away and he shakes his head. “Anyway. I don’t think I can.”

Aziraphale considers that Crowley and Warlock have been talking enough that Crowley has found out about Warlock's experiments in gardening.

"It wasn't supposed to _mean_ anything." Crowley says at last. "Nanny Ashtoreth. She -- I -- wasn't meant to be _real_. But you show up at the door and wave your credentials about with a bit of demonic _oomph_ and the parents are all, 'Thank goodness, he's just weed in his nappy and we haven't the first idea what to do!' "

He thrusts the rose forward as if foisting the potted plant off on some invisible being standing in front of him before letting it fall back into his lap with a sigh.

Aziraphale is struck by a sudden memory, so vivid it causes gooseflesh to break out across his arms and tears to spring to his eyes, of Crowley in those first disorienting weeks when the reality descended upon them both that this was to be their _lives_ for the next eleven years. Crowley had nodded off on the sofa in the gardener’s cottage with Warlock asleep on his chest, still so tiny Aziraphale could have fit Warlock’s downy head in his palm and Warlock’s bottom in against the crook of his elbow. Both nanny and infant had been full asleep when a knock came at the door, startling Crowley awake with a crackle of disoriented power. Aziraphale, sitting with a book across the room by the window, had seen the outflung shadow of protective wings and Crowley’s hands fly up to shield Warlock from threat.

"Crowley," he says, softly, turning his hand over on the bench between them in silent offering. Crowley takes it and grips it as if he's in danger of blowing off the roof in the light October breeze. "You were --" _exactly the nanny that Warlock needed_.

"They treated him like they treated us: like a chess piece," Crowley continues, bitterly, before Aziraphale can finish his thought. "Moved into position and _left_ there. None of them on either side thought of him as a being who needed -- who needed --" he heaves in a sudden breath as if he's forgotten about oxygen and Aziraphale slides to his knees so he can get right in front of Crowley and see his face. He gently pulls the rose from Crowley's lap and sets it on the roof beside them.

"Darling," he says, because he isn't sure what else to say. He can't deny that this is exactly how Heaven and Hell -- even he, a lot of the time, if he’s being honest -- had thought about Warlock. He folds Crowley’s chilled hands in his own, whispering words of warmth to chapped fingers.

"I had to go and _care_." Crowley says, so softly that if Aziraphale hadn't been on his knees looking up at Crowley's face to see his lips move he might have missed it.

"You have always cared," Aziraphale says, watching Crowley’s face. "And cared _well_. It is one of the many things I love about you. And it seems Warlock agrees with me, as he has gone to a great deal of trouble to find you again."

Crowley shakes his head through the words but doesn't speak when Aziraphale stops. Instead, he pulls one of his hands from Aziraphale’s grip and picks up his mobile phone from the bench. He gives it a few swipes with his thumb and turns the screen toward Aziraphale who fumbles to accept it while not letting go of Crowley's hand. Crowley is still clinging to him and if touch helps then Aziraphale will give him as much as he needs. As Aziraphale looks down at the mobile screen, Crowley turns his head to look toward the greenhouse at the far end of the roof as if he doesn't want to watch Aziraphale read.

It takes a moment for Aziraphale to realize he's looking at a text log that stretches back across the past week or more; he remembers, now, noticing several days after their return from Tadfield that Warlock had been added as one of the contacts on his mobile -- sandwiched incongruously between Sky and Wensleydale. Not exactly sure what he's supposed to be looking _for_ , he skims up through the past several days worth of exchanges. Most are begun with a picture or a question from Crowley: A snapshot of the science section in Aziraphale's bookshop, a query about whether Warlock is still allergic to shellfish, a picture of Newt working on the final wall of the greenhouse, a question about whether Warlock would like to visit the British Museum. There's the exchange two days previous about Warlock's attempts at rose breeding, and a proud picture of his geography essay with approving remarks from the teacher. A boy named Andrew comes up several times, and a girl named Fateemah who is teaching him how to juggle. Aziraphale notes his own relief that Warlock seems to be doing well in school and has a friend or two. He doesn't know how many friends might be considered normal in human circles, but somewhere between his own long-standing habit of one and Adam's gang of three seems plausible. Not everyone needs to be a social butterfly.

Down near the bottom of the strand of exchanges is a photograph from Crowley of breakfast that morning, which had been savory omelettes and toast. In the edge of the photograph he sees his own hand settled on Crowley's wrist; unremarkable in that it's rare these days for Aziraphale to sit within reaching distance of Crowley and _not_ find a way to maintain physical contact. It's the closing of a circuit that keeps their world humming onward.

Underneath the photo Warlock had asked, _How long have you and Mr. Fell been friends?_

__

Crowley had responded: _Since long before you were born._

__

Aziraphale traces the shape of that answer with his thumb.

__

"What can I do to help, my dear?" He finally asks.

__

Crowley sighs and shakes his head, though not in denial. "Just ... remind me to be brave?" He drops a crooked quirk of a smile down toward Aziraphale's hand held fast in his lap. "And maybe make sure I don't snake out of stress in the middle of Euston Station?"

__

"That _would_ be a bit difficult to explain," Aziraphale smiles, but makes a mental note to put one of Crowley's baskets in the boot of the Bentley before they depart. Always best to be prepared. "Now, what would you say to a pint and a shepherd's pie at the Crofter's for supper?"

__


	4. euston

They arrive at Euston on Saturday morning comfortably punctual to meet Warlock's train only to find out it's running late and they have more than an hour's wait ahead of them.

"I know transit delays were my own handiwork," Crowley growls, drumming his fingers in an irritated staccato on the Bentley's steering wheel. "But did I have to be quite _this_ good?"

Aziraphale smooths a comforting hand down Crowley's tense thigh, giving his knee a squeeze. "Let's go for a walk."

They leave the Bentley illegally parked directly in front of the station and Aziraphale takes Crowley's hand as they stroll in the direction of the British Library. Crowley's is tightly wound this morning, and with a point of physical contact Aziraphale can siphon off some of the accumulation of electric energy that's starting to make Crowley's hair dance in agitation. Crowley had allowed Aziraphale to fuss over his hair this morning, and Aziraphale had tried to ease his grace into the braid as he wove it -- a method he's employed in the past, a way to help Crowley find calm at the eye of a storm without having to ask for assistance in so many words. He thinks the gracework in Crowley’s hair has helped ... but the number of fender benders, just-missed buses, and spilled lattes they passed between Soho and Euston tell Aziraphale that Crowley is still struggling for equilibrium.

"Warlock will be hungry when he arrives, don't you think?" Aziraphale asks, mostly for something to say. It often helps Crowley just to listen to Aziraphale talk at length about nothing in particular. "There's that lovely creperie just down from the British Library, do you remember? The last time we were there was that day I had to stop in at the library to have a look at that Belgian grimoire for Anathema. I ordered that crepe with the brie and pears. And their French hot chocolate was divine." Warlock, like Aziraphale, has a bit of a sweet tooth and had always enjoyed the crepes Aziraphale made for the three of them on special days. 

From the start, Warlock's parents had turned Warlock's birthday into a society affair. The poor child would reach the end of the day exhausted and, more often than not, have a full-body meltdown. On the afternoon of Warlock's fourth birthday Crowley had brought a weeping, thrashing Warlock to Aziraphale's cottage and set the child carefully down on the kitchen floor. " _You_ deal with him for a bit," he'd said, enunciating every word. "Before I do something you'll consider unforgivable." And then he'd stalked back out again.

Aziraphale had set aside his book and gone over to the sobbing, red-faced child. He'd crouched down until he was at eye level and they regarded one another. "Oh my," he'd said in as calm a voice as he could manage -- putting a bit of soothing grace into the words as he usually did when Warlock was in a state. "It's been a bit of a day, hasn't it." 

Warlock hiccuped. 

"Why don't you and I make a surprise for when Nan comes back?" 

Warlock hiccuped again. 

There was a series of picture books about a man and his cat that Warlock absolutely _adored._ Aziraphale had found one of the titles, incongruously, in the bottom of a box that contained a full edition of the _Oxford English Dictionary_ while unpacking from a Shropshire estate sale. Rather than add it to the shop inventory he had set it aside to bring back to the Dowlings'. Warlock had liked the book so much that Aziraphale had subsequently set about finding the others, and one of them featured the man making a birthday pie of Swedish pancakes and strawberry jam.

"What do you think about making a pancake pie?" Aziraphale had asked, putting out a hand. Warlock's fingers were grubby with dirt and tears and what looked like the remains of chocolate cake, but he had uncurled a fist and let Aziraphale pull him to his feet. "Now," Aziraphale said. "Where did I put my apron?" 

After that year, it became an annual ritual for Crowley and Aziraphale to spirit Warlock away from the official birthday celebrations, as soon as (if not before) he started showing signs of exhaustion, so that the three of them could finish the day with a quiet evening at the cottage. Aziraphale hasn't made a pancake pie for three birthdays now and feels a sudden, unanticipated wave of grief at the thought. He stumbles on a bit of rough pavement and Crowley grips his hand to steady him. 

"Hey," Crowley says, soft. "Need you on your feet for this, my angel."

"I -- yes," Aziraphale wipes a hand across his face and steadies himself. "I was just thinking --" for the hundredth time since Warlock's email, why it had once felt so imperative, to cut themselves off so entirely from a _child_.

"I know," Crowley says, and Aziraphale thinks yes, he most probably does, and likely got there before Aziraphale did.

"I think I could use a fortifying cup of tea," he admits.

"Well," Crowley says. "We _are_ in London. Let's see what we can do."

* * *

By the time Warlock's train pulls up to the platform, Aziraphale and Crowley have fortified themselves with tea and Crowley isn't causing passersby to trip over invisible shoelaces at quite the same rate as he had before their walk. He's poking at his mobile as Aziraphale stands next to him, against a wall away from the flow of pedestrian traffic to and from the platform, leaning just enough to maintain shoulder-to-shoulder contact and stave off the worst of Crowley's nerves. 

"He's just texted to say they're arriving," Crowley mutters. "I've told him to look for us at the end of the platform."

"I suppose the last time he saw me I had a beard, didn't I?" Aziraphale asks, surprised he hasn't thought of this before. He touches fingers to he clean-shaven cheek. Crowley raises an eyebrow that Aziraphale can _feel_. "Well, yes," he admits in response to the nonverbal observation. "But you with the black, and the hair, it's -- you always look like _you_." He flaps a hand in illustration. It seems self-evident that Crowley is always unmistakeably _Crowley_.

"And it's never occurred to you that _you_ always look like _you_?" Crowley seems honestly curious.

Aziraphale blinks. "I -- well." 

"There he is," Crowley says before Aziraphale can finish forming a response. He straightens from his slouch against the wall and turns his entire focus down the platform. Aziraphale grabs his arm just in case, but the energy radiating off Crowley is transmuting even as he takes a step forward -- with Aziraphale stumbling half a step behind -- from the foggy despair of the previous afternoon and staticky nerves of the morning into something calm and focused and purposeful. And there, suddenly, in front of them on the platform amidst the stream of other disembarking passengers, is Warlock.

Warlock has grown in the past two years. No surprise; Aziraphale has seen Adam, Wensleydale, and Brian all gain more height than seems necessary among three human boys. Warlock is nearly as tall as Aziraphale now. His features and proportions having settled into that indeterminate adolescent state he shares with the Them: no longer children, exactly, but not yet full adults. Aziraphale can see the clear traces of the child he had been overlaid with the sketched out features of the grown human he will someday become.

He's pale, thinks Aziraphale, sadly, as Warlock sees them and hesitates, hand white-knuckled on the strap of the knapsack slung over his shoulder. Warlock had always had a light complexion, with a shock of dark hair and the mismatched eyes -- one blue, one green -- that left humans so discomfited. But this isn’t just fair, it’s outright _wan_. The pallor of someone who has too much on their mind and no one to share their troubles with.

He’s a bit gangly but not underfed -- there's that, at least-- and yet he manages to feel undersized all the same, as if apologizing for taking up space. Aziraphale is familiar with that look -- both he, himself, and Newt are champions at the posture of apology under the right (unwelcoming) circumstances. He wonders what in Warlock’s life has made him feel so persistently unwelcome -- and feels a ripple of guilt that it could, possibly -- at least in part -- have been them. 

"Warlock," Crowley says first. It comes out as both a statement of fact and a greeting. And he puts out a hand, the one unencumbered by Aziraphale still clinging to his elbow. There's something about the way Crowley reaches out -- an invitation to catch hold -- that brings back a memory of Crowley doing just this, so many times, with a much younger child: Putting a hand out to help Warlock over a stile, climb a flight of stairs, get into and out of a bus, walk down a country lane, wade out into the ocean surf.

Warlock must remember it too, because after a breathless in which he seems frozen in place the hunched tension in his body drains away, his shoulders ease, and his face lights up in a smile.

"Hi Nan," he says, and reaches out to put his hand in Crowley's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pancake pie they make for Warlock's birthday comes from the children's book series Pettson och Findus by Sven Norquist: [Pancakes for Findus](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2387509.Pancakes_for_Findus)


	5. juggling

Crowley gives Warlock's hand the gentlest tug forward and Warlock falls in against him. It's a weary stumble, as if he’s gone too long without proper rest. Aziraphale hurts, to see it, knowing that whatever it is depleting him they haven't been there to help as they could -- should -- have been. Crowley has both arms around Warlock now, and Aziraphale hears the nonsense murmur of Crowley trying to soothe an anxious child. Aziraphale couldn't have said he knew that particular tone of Crowley's voice except he does know it because the sound conjures up Crowley walking circles in the gardener’s cottage kitchen with a fretful baby, kneeling to put a sticking plaster on Warlock's knee, or bending over to daub honey on a bee sting. Aziraphale feels a gentle eddy of beyond-air as Crowley opens, then closes, his wings, a brief circumscription of care as he and Warlock stand reunited in what Aziraphale ensures is an island of calm on the otherwise bustling platform.

It's a hug that doesn't last more than a handful of seconds, but both Crowley and Warlock seem the steadier for it when Crowley steps back.

Warlock peers around Crowley's shoulder at Aziraphale, a tentative but hopeful smile on his face. "Mr. Fell?"

"In the flesh," Aziraphale says, and -- taking his cue from Crowley -- he opens his arms and lets Warlock step into them for a hug. Aziraphale still doesn't touch easily, apart from touching Crowley, but he tries not to stiffen as the flutter of anxiety moves through him. "It's good to see you," he murmurs, with a little extra squeeze before letting go and stepping back. "Shall we go find something to eat?"

They leave the station and stop at the Bentley to leave Warlock's knapsack in the boot.

"You still have your cool car!" Warlock says, brightening, when he spots it pulled up at the curb. He pats the Bentley's hood in greeting, then follows Crowley around to the back to stow his bag.

"Wouldn't know who I was without her," Crowley says as he unlocks the boot.

While he waits for them, Aziraphale sorts through the clutter of humanity around them trying to re-attune himself to Warlock. Though not as strongly as he can with Crowley, Aziraphale is able to feel the particular hum of some humans' presence in the world. Humans with a similar sensitivity sometimes called it an aura, or talked about second sights and third eyes, suggesting something visible. For Aziraphale the awareness has never worked quite like that. For him it's more of a physical sensation, felt most often when he comes into contact with a person -- but sometimes when he's merely close by, and particularly if he knows the person well. He can identify Anathema's _Anthemaness_ now, and Newt's, and each of the Them. Sky. Shop customers like Nasreen, or Safiya, whom he has come to know in more than passing terms. He can tell if they have a mild fever or woke up with a headache, whether they've had a particularly good piece of news, or spent the morning enjoying the fresh air somewhere pleasant. He'd worried right after the end-that-wasn't that retiring from active service, as it were, would mean the end to this ability. But two years on it's working as it always has. So perhaps it's just part of his nature.

During their years at the Dowlings, Aziraphale could gauge Warlock's well-being without a second's thought but he's out of practice. He feels for the hum of Crowley -- always within easy reach -- then fumbles nearby and ... there. Aziraphale feels the flutter of _Warlock_ come to the fore amidst the backdrop of all the other humans moving around them. It's subdued, but still strong. Fatigue and a worrying note of _unsafety_ that makes Aziraphale frown. But he can still sense the child's curiosity, so like Crowley's -- the thought makes him smile -- and Warlock's unmistakeable happiness and relief at being here, with them. They can afford to spend the afternoon enjoying London together and let the child share his troubles when he's ready.

The morning mist has blown off leaving them with a brilliant midday of warm sunshine to offset the October chill. There's an open air market on one of the side streets near King's Cross and Aziraphale, Crowley, and Warlock meander toward it and then down the row of stalls at an unhurried pace. Warlock is telling Crowley about some sort of fancy vintage automobile show he attended with his parents during the summer holidays, a discussion that quickly sails past Aziraphale's meagre knowledge of cars into the realm of make and model, engine performance, and aerodynamics. He's content to let their conversation wash over him, aware of the pleasure at hearing their voices once again rightfully intertwined, and enjoy the abundance of options at the stalls: fresh produce, baked goods, honey, herbs and spices, a cart selling sausages, and another with tamales, a stand offering mint lemonade, and another with a display of tidbits dipped in chocolate.

There are buskers as well, and they stop to listen to a cellist playing Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major while Crowley hands over several bank notes to Warlock and sends him off to buy pasties for a midday meal from a stall down toward the end of the row.

"He's happy to be here," Aziraphale murmurs to Crowley, sliding his hand into Crowley's coat pocket to interleave their fingers and give Crowley's hand a reassuring squeeze.

Crowley squeezes back. "You feel it too?"

"He's still himself, my dear, if that's what you mean. He has worries and troubles I'm sure. But I don't feel that he's been ... " Aziraphale thinks after so many millennia of observation he should have more precise language to describe what happens when a human's spirit becomes essentially compromised. "... I can't feel any fundamental damage to his soul." Another squeeze of Crowley's hand and he shifts a little bit closer, so their shoulders are touching, and turns to press a kiss against Crowley's cheek simply because he's amazed each and every time that he can.

"Here's the pies," Warlock is back with a brown paper sack already showing signs of grease. He glances between the two of them, then holds out a fist. "And the change, Nan." Crowley takes the coins and pockets them. "There's a _fire_ juggler up there," Warlock points back in the direction he's just come from, bouncing on his toes with contained excitement. "Can we go watch?"

"Lead on," Crowley says gravely, with the sketchiest of courtly gestures.

The juggler has the attention of a small group of onlookers as she throws the five flaming torches with speed and precision into the air. By the time Crowley and Aziraphale arrive at the circle Warlock has already edged his way to the front of the crowd and looks rapt.

"There's a bench just over there," Aziraphale points. "I'm suddenly quite hungry. Shall we?"

"What've we missed," Crowley grumbles with a frown as he settles beside Aziraphale and accepts the food Aziraphale offers.

"My dear, he's been with us for less than an hour."

"It just seems suspiciously easy," Crowley gestures with his meat and potato pie. "Give him a hug, feed him, allow him to play with fire and .. ?"

"That was rather your approach as a nanny, wasn't it?" Aziraphale plucks a piece of potato out of his pie and eats it, licking gravy from his fingers. Applause wells up from the crowd as the juggler ends her fire demonstration and moves on to a series of rings juggled while balancing on a unicycle.

"You give me too much credit," Crowley avers. "You know I never had an ‘approach.’ "

"Still." Aziraphale eats a piece of carrot. "Time with the Them have given me a better understanding of what you did, all those years. I didn't think about it as I should have, at the time."

Crowley scratches his ear, a gesture which usually means Aziraphale is correct but Crowley isn't ready to admit it. "I didn't exactly know what I was signing up for did I?"

"Mmm." Aziraphale tries to angle a bite of pastry into his mouth and ends up with crumbs down his front. "Still. Hugs, food, and fire you said? One could argue there's nothing simple about any of those things. Don't discount yourself. You made decisions. Choices. And here we are, again, because _you_ made it possible for him to visit us."

"With so many hours left to fuck it up in," Crowley mutters darkly, but he leans against Aziraphale's shoulder as he says it and his eyes are on Warlock. The crowd is trailing away as the busker ends her performance; Warlock lingers and, with a quick glance back toward Crowley and Aziraphale, moves forward to say something to the juggler. She listens seriously and soon has a set of pins out to demonstrate a technique.

"He's quick," Aziraphale observes. He's getting a chance with the pins now and after a couple of false starts is getting enthusiastic praise from his teacher.

"Always was quick with his hands," Crowley says. "Remember the winter he demanded I teach him embroidery?"

"Indeed, I remember," Aziraphale smiles. Many of the lessons had taken place in Aziraphale's cottage. Crowley enjoyed using botanical illustrations of poisonous plants for inspiration. He also remembered much more than he would ever admit to about the language of flowers. "That was the winter we read E. Nesbit." Crowley and Warlock sitting together on the sofa, heads bent together over muslin and silk while Aziraphale sat in a rocking chair by the fire and read aloud.

Warlock comes back to the bench where they're sitting, animated, "Look! She says I can have them!" He's holding three of the bright-colored juggling hoops. Aziraphale looks over at the performer, who waves, and waves back in thanks, pushing a little extra good fortune her way for her kindness. _Thank you_ he mouths silently, and she nods.

He wonders, suddenly, what she sees when she looks over: Two fathers and a son? Uncles and a nephew? Godfathers? They've rarely been with the Them unless Anathema and Newt are present which usually means _they're_ the ones mistaken for parents. He finds he is not averse to people assuming Warlock belongs with them. It's true, even if human categories of belonging are limited at best.

"I hope you said thank you," Aziraphale says, turning back to Warlock and falling into old habits.

" _Yes_ ," Warlock rolls his eyes. "Of _course_. Can I get an ice cream now?"

“Lunch first,” Crowley says, reaching across Aziraphale to grab the paper bag holding the remaining pasty.

Yes, Aziraphale thinks. Yes. They will muddle through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter needs some new sections and may be broken in two. Just a note to say that there may be a week or two delay until I am able to publish the conclusion. Which of course sets them on the path to Christmas together in Tadfield :-)

**Author's Note:**

>  **UPDATE 2/7/2020:** My apologies to readers as I do try not to leave works in progress for too long. The final scenes of this fic (introducing Warlock to the bookshop and the flat, and learning a bit about what's prompted him to reach out to Crowley and Aziraphale) are fighting back and have also run up against some other unrelated writing deadlines in my worklife. I haven't abandoned this fic but don't have a firm timeline for the final update. Please know that Aziraphale and Crowley will make sure Warlock has them in his life for as long as he needs them.


End file.
